A COMPUTER expert who was caught with child porn has been banned from the internet for life.

Paul Robson, 64, who holds a degree in computer sciences, was arrested at his Middlesbrough home when Cleveland Police received a tip-off about his activities.

They found child porn on a desktop computer that he had built himself, and also evidence that he had been exchanging it with a man calling himself Jim Smith, said prosecutor Anthony Moore.

When Robson was interviewed on March 22 last year, the day of his arrest, he said that computers were something of a hobby and that he had run a website which had been hacked into by someone who inserted child pornography.

He had a computer sciences degree about 13 or 14 years ago, Teesside Crown Court was told.

The police found 430 indecent images of children, including one at the most serious level five and 70 at level four, of children aged seven to 16.

There were also a series of emails with a Jim Smith showing there had been an exchange of images, Mr Moore added. Two images at level one were from Robson.

He was re-arrested on November 17 and admitted downloading and distributing indecent images. The Crown asked for a Sexual Offences Prevention Order banning him indefinitely from using computers and mobile phones to contact the internet, which the judge granted.

Bryan Russell, defending, said that Robson had entered guilty pleas at the earliest possible moment. He said Robson was more likely to benefit from supervision and assistance than from a short jail sentence.

Judge Howard Crowson told Robson: “I take the view that this is a large number of level four images.

“It seems to me that your position is aggravated by your experience of computers and sharing images with a man known as Jim Smith.

“It’s clear to me that you knew what you were doing, you were the holder of a computer sciences degree from some 13 years ago and you ran a website for a time upon which indecent images were placed.”

Robson, of Park Lane, Middlesbrough, was given a 10 months’ jail sentence suspended for two years, a Sexual Offences Prevention Order and ordered to undergo a sexual offender’s treatment programme and to register as a sex offender for 10 years.

He pleaded guilty to 16 charges of making indecent photographs of children, possession of 414 indecent images between January 2005 and March last year, and also to two offences of distributing child pornography in June last year.